


In Her Grace

by Ladiladida



Category: Cormoran Strike Series - Robert Galbraith
Genre: Developing Relationship, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, cormoran’s doubts, robin’s stubbornness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-05
Updated: 2018-12-05
Packaged: 2019-09-12 09:41:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16870615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladiladida/pseuds/Ladiladida
Summary: So there they sat, side by side, everything hanging in the air between them.





	In Her Grace

It was the long silence afterwards, time suspended between them as they sat side by side on that sofa. The exchange had been heated, fuelled by confusion on one side and hurt on the other. Both now felt exhausted, their tempers spent though what really had been said? Flared emotions had approached the discussion illogically and now both felt embarrassed. Robin sat back, slightly slumped, one hand covering her eyes. 

Cormoran leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees, hands drooping, eyes bent on the floor. He was more aware of her than ever, he could hear her once shallow breathing becoming slower and deeper. Like he, she was calming down from the effect only, the cause still present. 

There were things she could rightly level at him, but she could never in her right mind say that he didn’t care. Charlotte at her worst could exhaust him from flesh to bone and through his mind, but this was different. He was so much more aware of care he felt since entering Robin’s atmosphere. So aware of all the positive shifts both great and small, acutely visible in their need to be sustained. He was perpetually living, not just existing now. Therefore, how was it possible for him not to care?

Robin’s free hand rested by her thigh, it was that left hand that had flashed that sapphire of security when they had first met. Now, that hand was liberated, skin smooth, nails clean cut and French polished. They were full of her grace even when resting limply such as now. As he glanced at its creamy smoothness, he wondered to himself. Could he truly ever put a ring on that finger from himself? He’d vowed after Charlotte, the thought of an engagement was abhorrent to him. Yet here was Robin, Robin whom he had accidentally kissed in a car park. 

Robin who was always so close yet quite out of reach....

Only she wasn’t, she was perfectly reachable if only he’d let himself.

“Is it so hard, Cormoran?” She asked quietly, her hand moving from her face as she pulled herself upwards a little. Taking a deep breath, he glanced back at what he expected to be glistening eyes. He was mistaken, her eyes, though beautiful, looked exhausted. That had been his doing.

“I’m not sure what you want me to say, Robin.” He said defeatedly, the words he was dying to betray taffling up in his mind with all the doubt. “Do you imagine from here we’d just go on as before... that is until we get to the point where things naturally step up. What then? We could get married, you might want children whereas I’m no fit person for fatherhood. If that doesn’t drive a wedge just on principal and we did... then you and I would be pulled two different ways...”

“I’ve changed my mind, you can stop talking... I don’t want to hear anymore...” she said flatly. “I just... you seem to think I’ve got all these things I’ll need from you, demand of you...”

“I don’t think you’d ask anything of me that wouldn’t be perfectly reasonable to want with anyone else Robin.”

“Anyone else.” She repeated, looking down where her wedding band had once been. Cormoran followed her eyes, aware that despite all his reservations, the thought of some other man’s promise dividing them on that slender finger again one day was sickening to him. “Do imagine yourself so complicated?”

“I know what I’m capable of and what I’m not.”

“Does loving me come under either of those categories?”

“You know how I feel about you, Robin.”

She moved now, rising from the sofa, ignoring its standard noise. As though any other day were passing, she walked to the kettle and flicked it onto boil. Cormoran watched her and she turned to him as though to ask if he wanted a cup of tea. He nodded.

As her side profile was visible to him, he contemplated a pregnant Robin, her stomach rounded from 5 or 6 months of carrying his child. It was true he had no urges to be a father, but Robin put a happier angle on the situation. Was this what frightened him? Trying to split what could be the best thing that could happen to him into two lives. That was far too simple. What then? His shattered upbringing, his torturous relationship with Charlotte and his amputated leg? No...

Unworthiness when looking upon someone so wonderful, so resilient and so perfectly flawed yet fit for life? Perhaps. But all were merely petty excuses for the fact that in a certain way, she frightened him, so steady as she was. Even with all her own personal battles, she would be unwavering in a typhoon if it came to it.

Robin held out a cup of tea to him and he took it in both his hands. He expected her to retreat for her own cup but instead she knelt in front of him. Her pale skin and tired eyes looking up at him.

“Right...” she breathed softly. “Here we are... I love you.”

Cormoran held the gaze she dared him to meet, her saving grace being stubbornness. She both infuriated and enthralled him, why could she not keep the peace as he did. Yet why was her words music to his ears. Her hands came up to touch his face, raising herself higher onto her knees. Despite this action, it was he that moved himself to press his lips against her own. It was done without another thought, his hands coming forward to clutch her waist. Was he afraid, he was terrified. But now, he was falling somewhere with her, territory only thought about in moments where he was safe and alone.

When their lips parted, he pulled her to him in a tight embrace, the smell of her hair, her perfume and everything else mingling and disarming him. In his arms, though still kneeling on the floor, she felt perfect. 

“Robin.” He murmured, his lips brushing her skin as he pressed his face into the curve of where her neck met shoulder. Her hands slid into his hair and she moved so that she could seat herself on his lap. Their lips met again and she worked to strip away whatever obstacles kept him from her. Gentle but determined.

Here they were then, nothing settled, future uncertain but together. As his arms tightened about her and his next words hold her of his own feelings, he knew he had everything he needed.


End file.
